Adding a Currency to OpenCart 1.5

Adding a currency allows you to give your customer the option to use the type of monetary unit that they use in their country. Being able to use their own money provides further comfort and confidence in purchasing products from your store. The following tutorial will guide you in adding a currency to OpenCart 1.5.

How to change and add another currency within OpenCart 1.5

Hover over SYSTEM in the menu bar, then when the drop-down menu is shown, then click on LOCALISATION. Another drop-down menu will appear when you hover over LOCALISATION. Select CURRENCIES in the next drop-down menu and you will see the following screen:

The above screenshot indicates that there are three different currencies loaded into the store. It shows the Currency title, the ISO code for each currency and the current value of each against default currency (indicated as the U.S. Dollar). In order to edit existing currencies, select EDIT, or select INSERT in order to add a new currency. You are also able to delete a currency by simply selecting an existing currency and then hitting the DELETE button.

To add a currency, select INSERT and you will see the following screen (in left column):

The CURRENCY TITLE is the name used to define the currency

The CODE is the 3-letter ISO abbreviation for the monetary unit. See more information on getting the ISO information below

SYMBOL LEFT requires that you place the symbol of the currency you are using in the blank as it would appear next to the amount of money you're trying to show. For example, for dollar, it would be $. (e.g. $125.00)

SYMBOL RIGHT requires that you place the symbol of the currency you are using in the blank as it would appear next to the amount of money you're trying to show. For example, for the euro, it would be €. (e.g. 125.00€)

DECIMAL PLACES represents the number of decimal places that would be displayed for each monetary amount. The dollar uses 2, so the value you would put in the blank is "2". Currencies that use more than two can be designated at this point (e.g. Dollar uses 2 decimal places: $125.00)

VALUE is the numerical conversion rate of the currency being displayed. If it is the default unit, the value would be 1.00000

STATUS is used to quickly disable a currency when it is required to remove it from the availability of the customer.

Note that the CURRENCY TITLE and CODE are mandatory items. Their values are required before you can save the currency. You can find the list of currency codes at the Currency Code Service (ISO 4217 Maintenance Agency). Be aware that the table is downloadable, but only in either Microsoft Excel or XML file formats. You can also see a list of active currencies at ISO 4217 in Wikipedia.org.

Fill in each item as required. Each field is described in the table above.

To SET THE DEFAULT CURRENCY make the VALUE "1.0000." VALUE can also be automatically set, but you need to go into a different area of the Administrator to do so. For further further information on this issue go to Enabling Auto Update Currency in OpenCart 1.5

To HIDE or DISABLE a currency (STATUS): Go to STATUS and then click on the drop-down menu and select DISABLED

Once you have made your changes, or finished adding your currency information, select the SAVE button in the top right hand corner to save your entries

The result of making a change to the CURRENCIES from the perspective of the customer is most easily seen in the currency list in the storefront. Here is a screenshot of the top of the demo store where the currencies are represented by the currency symbols:

Note that the active currency ($) is highlighted. The other currencies are available, but must be selected for use. If you remove or disable a currency, then the monetary symbol for that currency will be removed from the list.

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